The Human Rights Watch (HRW) advocacy group says it has documented dozens of forced evictions of residents in Azerbaijan, in the area of the capital Baku where the arena for the May 2012 Eurovision Song Contest is still being built.

"The Azerbaijani government is not just demolishing houses, it’s destroying peoples’ lives,” said HRW's senior Europe and Central Asia researcher, Jane Buchanan, who authored the report.

HRW says evictions have been carried out for a variety of projects connected to the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku.

The forcibly evicted families say local authorities have offered them inadequate housing compensation.